Killing Lucas (9 page)

Chapter Nine

“You would have been my wife. What about that?”—Lucas to Kiloran

K
iloran lay in his arms, terrified to move. What if this moment of passion had been a fluke? What if Lucas regretted it and what kind of gasket would he blow when he realized they hadn’t used a condom? A big one, that’s what; she knew nothing about gaskets, but this one would be huge.

Neither of them should have taken that kind of chance with the other’s body. She heard through the grapevine Lucas hadn’t dated anyone seriously since their break up, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t taking anyone home for a quick romp in the bedroom.

Her stomach seized at the thought of other women in his arms and his mouth on theirs, just as Kiloran had made it look like had happened with Mel, her costar all those years ago. They’d done nothing but wait for Lucas to open the door and think they had been having sex and drinking all morning. The second had been true; she’d drunk herself into oblivion that day. Otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to let him go. Mel had thought the whole idea was stupid, but he’d owed her. She’d gone to bat for him with the movie studio when his name was no better than mud in town. She’d given him his second chance.

Still clothed under the blankets, they’d made it look convincing. Kiloran had said things that she still didn’t remember, but the look of pain on Lucas’s face came through that hazy fog of drunken memory even now. She’d watched his world collapse and remembered how, before he left, the iron wall had gone up around him.

She’d given Tony a letter a few months ago with an explanation about what really happened that night. The guilt of Mel’s death, followed by a friend saying she had bumped into Lucas and it was like seeing a stranger had been too much to bear. So Kiloran had found a reason to see one of the Sherman brothers, the one least likely to physically throw her out of his office. But also the one who could rip her to shreds with mere words, and had there not been another person in the room, no doubt about it he would have flayed her. Ripped her apart like a T-Rex tearing into his dinner. But she’d taken a chance that Tony the protector would open the letter himself and read it. Then he would know, would see, what had happened.

She’d waited at her hotel room for days, hoping Tony or Lucas would call. But no calls had come, and she had to accept that Tony probably ripped up the letter, throwing it away along with the brief hope she and Lucas could somehow be together again. But after a few days of feeling sorry for herself, she remembered that Lucas’s safety was more important than either of their happiness.

Moving her hand down to her stomach she allowed herself for just a minute to wonder what it would be like to have Lucas’s baby deep within, to have a piece of him to carry and nurture for nine months, to grow round and full with him. Would their children be darker like him, or redheaded and freckled like her? And then like an ice bucket over her head she thought of what would happen if they didn’t catch the stalker. How could she possibly bring a baby into this world when someone was out to hurt anyone she cared about? How different would her life have been without this psycho in it?

“You okay?” Lucas’s voice drifted over her. Oh, how she’d missed the huskiness it took on after sex. So thick and sensual, just one word from him and she was aching for his touch again. And after years of celibacy, that one quick round had done nothing but take that the edge off her need. “Kil?”

“Sorry, I’m fine.”

“Should I apologize for what just happened?”

Leaning on an elbow she lifted up to look at him to see his face. But he wasn’t looking at her; his free arm was draped over his eyes. “Why would I want you to apologize? Do you regret what we just did?”

Peeking out from under his arm, he shook his head “I feel like I should regret it, but I don’t.”

“So where do we go from here?”

“Like most things that deal with you, I have no earthly clue. We still need to focus on your madman, and then we can deal with what happens to us.”

“Is there a chance for us?” Kiloran hoped only she could hear the neediness in her voice. She so wanted there to be an “us,” to be the two of them, to be a happily ever after.

“I just don’t know yet. There is so much damned luggage with us. I don’t know if I have it in me to be in a relationship again.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“No, no more sorrys. I don’t want you to apologize any more. What happened is in the past, and we can’t change it.”

“Will you at least listen to what I have to say?”

“Say about what?”

“About that day?”

“I told you yesterday, I don’t want to think about that day. No matter what your intentions were, what you perceive happened compared to how I saw it, it doesn’t change who I have become because of it. What my family had to deal with.” He pulled away from her and sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her.

She wanted to touch him, but was unsure of herself, of him, of this “relationship,” of where her life was heading. Kiloran just wished her off-grid house was ready so she could just go there and hide. “Your family will never forgive me. I don’t blame them for how they feel. Your mother must have been beside herself when she found out.”

“I can handle my mother. If I’m happy, she’ll be happy.” Standing up, he reached for his pants and put them on before sitting on the bed again. His fingers brushed against the side of her face, down her neck and over her shoulder. “I always found your freckles such a turn on. They give you character. My mother once said you were kissed by the sun. All I could think about was how I was going to kiss every one.”

She had grown used to the angry Lucas; this gentle side only fed the well of sadness within her. There was so much melancholy for their shattered dreams in his voice. “Perhaps later you can get started on that goal.”

“Perhaps I will, but first I should go deal with my brother…who I left to unload the truck without me. He’s probably eaten everything in the kitchen as well.” Lucas brushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes and brushed his lips over hers. “You should take a hot shower. You’re going to ache from the accident tomorrow.”

“That sounds heavenly. Can I be a wimp and just ask you to go in there first to check it out?”

He smiled at her, nodded, then headed into the bathroom. She heard him start the shower before coming back into the room. “Up you go. When you get out just climb back in bed and see about getting some sleep. I’ll bring you up dinner later.”

She nodded; that plan sounded a great deal better then dealing with dinner herself. Maybe if she could sleep, she could forget for a minute. And maybe for a few hours she could feel happy again. Getting up, she headed toward the bathroom, pausing in the doorway for a moment. She knew it was silly but that didn’t help her nerves. As she started to close the door behind her, Kiloran’s cell phone rang. “Could you get that?” she asked, grabbing a hairbrush.

“Okay,” Lucas said picking up the state of the art device. “Hello? Hi, Mrs. O’Conner—yes this is Lucas.” There was a long pause as she could imagine her mother talking a mile a minute, asking questions before he had a chance to answer. “She’s fine… Word travels fast… No, it was a minor accident… Actually, she’s resting, do you want me to have her call you when she gets up?…
No
you shouldn’t jump on the next plane out. I promise, she’s fine… Would I lie to you?” A smile entered his voice, one guaranteed to get her mother off the thought of coming out. “No, really, no one needs to come out… Yes, I’m sure the next time Kil comes home I can join her… Yes, it would be grand.” With that he said goodbye and set the phone on the side table. “Make sure to call her in the morning.”

“Thank you.”

“Why haven’t you told your family about your stalker?”

“They would just worry. I don’t want them to. And they couldn’t do anything about it. What if they came out and got hurt? I can’t risk those I love.”

Lucas took a deep breath, crossing his arms in front of him. “You know, if you’d relied on the people who love you to help, maybe you wouldn’t be in this mess now.”

“And maybe you and my brothers would be dead.”

“And maybe the psycho would have been caught by now.”

“And what if you had been killed?”

He walked over and loomed above her. “And what if you had trusted me instead of sleeping with someone to push me away? You knew just what would drive the wedge between us, didn’t you? You decided for us what was best, but do you know what would have happened if you had just been honest with me? I would have married you. I would have protected you. You would have been my wife. What about that?”

A sob rose up from deep within her. Those words were the cruelest cut of all. Didn’t he know that that was all she had ever dreamed of? Being Mrs. Lucas Sherman was all she had wanted in life and she would have given up everything for. But it was a dream that would only end in the nightmare of him dead.

“Go to hell, Luc.” She shoved him and was shocked when he took a step back. He must have realized his last comment had hit below the belt, because the anger seemed to drain out of him.

“I’ve been in hell for years, Kil.”

“I understand, and I take the blame for that as well. You’re right, I should have told you but I knew you would give all this macho man shit and you wouldn’t have taken the threat seriously. I made a mistake I handled it poorly and I am sorry, a thousand times sorry, but…”

Turning away from her, he said, “No buts. You will never know what would have truly happened, because you made decisions that affected us both and never gave me a fucking say in how to handle it. You just decided for me. Pushed me away. Well guess what, that’s something you will have to live with. But I promise you this: I am going to find this asshole and he is going to pay for what he has done.”

He stormed out of the room, leaving Kiloran shaking where she stood until all she could do was slide to the floor, silent tears slid down her face as the sound of the shower echoed in the room.

Why did it matter?
Lucas thought as he leaned against the hallway wall.
Why did anything other than catching this madman matter?
He banged his head against the wall for good measure. All he wanted to do was go back into that room, pull Kiloran into his arms, and make love to her until he couldn’t think anymore.

Sex with her had been just as amazing as he remembered, even better since… “Oh
shit
.” Lucas hit his head again and again. He’d forgotten a condom. Granted, Lucas hadn’t slept with anyone since Kiloran, but what about her? Maybe she was on the pill. She hadn’t mentioned the lack of condom and with her job and the situation they were in she certainly wouldn’t want to bring a baby into this environment. “Idiot.”

“Are you talking to me?” Trenton called from the landing below.

“No.” Lucas ran a hand through his hair. Perhaps they could get some of the equipment set up so he could release some of his aggression. Pushing off the wall, he refocused his attention on the plan at hand. He walked out the front door to find Trenton’s truck empty and nothing on the lawn. He didn’t think it was possible Trent could have unloaded the items by himself and a feeling of foreboding came over him as he heard muffled voices downstairs.

Taking the stairs to the basement quicker than he should have, Lucas fully expected to see more than one Sherman in the basement. He certainly wouldn’t put it past them. Prepared to kick everyone out, he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Agent Vassar helping Trenton hang the punching bag instead.

“Are you going to stand there, or are you going to help?” Trenton tightened the clamp on the naked beam of the ceiling.

“You seem to be doing a fine job without me.”

“Jackass.”

Lucas helped lift the bag to relax the ropes. “Thanks for helping unload everything.”

“My pleasure. I didn’t have anything else to do while you were—occupied,” Agent Vassar said with a smirk.

“You mean while the two of them did the freakin’ horizontal tango, leaving me with a puppy and a whole lot of crap in a house not my own. Do you have any idea how many doors there are downstairs? Why does anyone need that many closets?” Trenton made one jolting move with a wrench, then smiled. “Done. Now if it’s all the same to you both, I’m going to head upstairs and get a shower. I ran across a room on the first floor with a full bathroom that will keep me far enough away from you two to actually get some sleep.”

Agent Vassar threw Lucas the gloves from one of the tables. “Let’s test this bag out.”

Lucas nodded put on the gloves did a little stretching and hit at the bag, left right. One, two. Over and over. It felt good to hit something. He hit the bag over and over, occasionally stepping back to give it a kick.

Vassar spoke from behind the bag, “This stalker is someone who works for the movie crew. We know that much for certain.”

Lucas nodded but didn’t pause, just doubled up his hits. He already had come to that conclusion and assumed Agent Vassar had as well. After all, anyone Hunter Brooks respected and recommended so highly had to have a good head on their shoulders. Lucas’s brother-in-law didn’t suffer idiots. Which had always lead Lucas to believe Hunter saw something in Tony that none of the family did. The two of them had been best friends for a decade. Something had to be there.

“You don’t seem surprised by that.”

“I’m not.” Lucas stopped and stared at the bag, thinking about what he needed to say. “Someone had to be able to slip in with that hive. There is only one door to that trailer, so it had to be someone who blends in, who knows the schedules and break times. He also had to be familiar enough to be able to go into the parking lot without being detected.”

“And they would have to know when you two would be gone so they could get in here while Ms. O’Connor was on set.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Lucas punched the bag again.

“It’s unfortunate for Ms. April that she was running errands and returned back to the set early.”

Lucas shuddered. If not for Nancy, it would have been Kiloran. “How is Nancy?”

“Resting, last I heard. They had her sedated. Of course, with the amount of Benadryl they were pumping into her, I’m sure she won’t wake for a week. There are agents at the hospital waiting to talk to her when she does.”

“You’ll let us know when she does so we can visit?”

“Of course.” Agent Vassar walked around the bag. “I think the wasps were meant for Kiloran and the car for you. You need to be extra careful. I think this guy is about to crack.”

“I think he’s already cracked.”

“I hope for both your and Kiloran’s sake he hasn’t, because when he does no one in his path will be safe. Least of all her.”

“Do you think we should leave?” Kiloran was sitting on the stairs, quiet and unassuming. That she’d sneaked up on both of them was a testament to her ability to creep. “Should the two of us just disappear for a while?”

“Aside from the fact that I know Lucas can’t up and leave, taking off won’t stop this person. He’ll hunt down people you know and love until you come out of hiding. You’re dealing with a psychopath. “

Lucas threw off his gloves and walked to Kiloran. Her wet hair and face, clear of all the makeup from the day, made her look so very young. She looked pale and fragile. “I thought you were getting some sleep.”